Making and eating skin

Sounds pretty gross!  We made some skin yesterday and everyone had some.  We have been learning about the integumentary system in science.  We have read about skin, hair, and nails and even spent some time looking under a microscope at skin and hair samples.

The next day we attempted to make a skin model showing arteries, veins, sweat glands, nerves, and hair.  The base was made out of Rice Krispie Treats.  We used the The Wonders Inside the Human Body as our guide.  It is book full of large descriptive pictures of the human body.  My son is using it to draw pictures for his science notebook.  

In the next picture you will see the almost completed model.  We did the first layer with arteries, veins, nerves, sweat glands, and hair and then added another Rice Krispie Treat layer and placed the multicolored Twizzlers on to represent the different parts.  They are painting a darker layer near the top of the skin.  We used food coloring for paint.

Here are the boys with the finished model.  The red ones are arteries,  The blue ones are veins.  The orange ones are sweat glands.  The green Twizzlers are nerves. The rows of chocolate are supposed to be hair.  I stuck bits of chocolate at the end to represent more hair.

Here is a close up.  Want a bite?  It was pretty yummy.

So while making and eating skin didn’t sound so pleasant it was a fun activity to reinforce what we had been reading.  I like using real food to make projects for a couple of reasons.  One is that I don’t want to store multiple projects.  This one lasts until eaten and then it is gone.  Another reason is that everytime my child eats part of this model they will have an opportunity to be reminded of the different parts and what they are called. So a structured learning time can branch off into natural learning.  What little boy will be able to resist taking about how they are eating a “sweat gland?”  Silliness is a great way to learn too.